UNITED NATIONS,
April 13 – The UN,
demonstrating hypocrisy on
both press freedom and
transparency, evicted Inner
City Press as it covered UN
corruption in the Ng Lap Seng
bribery case and restricts it
even now, after the evicting
official is gone from the UN's
unaccountable Department of
Public Information. A formal request
for reversal, below, was filed
13 days ago. So far only a
Kafka-esque one line response,
followed by an accusation by
the UN's lead spokesman
Stephane Dujarric that Inner
City Press' criticism of the
UN and some of its officials
is "harassment." Video
here. When Dujarric was
in charge of media accreditation
at the UN, he summoned Inner
City Press about a mere tweet,
here.
This, then, is censorship. And
those who took over accreditation
after Dujarric, in what's
being revealed as the DPI of
UN bribery indicted Ng Lap
Seng can't even explain the
basis of minders and metal
detectors for Inner City Press
while, for example, Egyptian
state media Akhbar al Yom was
nowhere to be seen, hasn't
asked a single question in ten
months. The
UN is Corrupt - we'll
have more on this.

Having no response other than
a forward to yet more UN DPI
officials, Inner City Press
asked and was told, Didn't [a
particular] DPI official talk
to you? Well, no.

So Inner City
Press put it in writing again:
"Eleven days ago I wrote with
several requests to the
Department of Public
Information, including
regarding the ongoing
restrictions in reporting that
I face due to a no
due process eviction
ordered by the former USG of
DPI. Other than a notification
that my request was being
forwarded to still others in
DPI, Inner City Press has
received no response, except
today to be told that one of
the addresses was supposed to,
or supposedly, told Inner City
Press 'there is no change at
this time.' This is totally
unacceptable. Only in the past
few days, I was prevented from
staking out the Rwanda
genocide memorial as I
have in previous years (the
DPI escort or minder told me,
very quickly, that I had to
leave); as I have told DPI, I
would have gone to cover the
USG of DPA's counter-terrorism
briefing today but for the
requirement of a
minder....This is a reiterated
request for reversal or a
written explanation of what
the UN has done and is doing
with regard to Inner City
Press." The UN's response? A
single line: "upon review of
the situation there is no
change in the current status."
This was copied to UN DPI
officials Maher Nasser, Hua
Jiang, Hak-Fan Lau,
Gallach-aide Darrin Farrant -
and then others, on which
we'll have more.

This is the UN's
"due process" after a more
than one year, ongoing
restriction for covering UN
corruption? Inner City Press
has written back, on which
we'll have more: "This
response, like the eviction
imposed in 2016, does not meet
the most basic threshold of
due process. What was
reviewed? Where are the
requested files? For the
record: Inner City Press said
in advance it would cover the
meeting in the UN Press
Briefing Room on January 29,
2016 specifically in order to
see how South South News,
described in U.S. District
Court as Ng Lap Seng's bribery
vehicle, was discussed.
For seeking to cover UN
corruption, Inner City Press
was by then DPI USG Gallach evicted
without a hearing, no
appeal, remains restricted.
Today I asked the Spokesman
about the guilty plea in the
Ng Lap Seng / John Ashe case,
which states that South South
News violated U.S. law. Now
the Spokesman says South South
News is no longer in the UN.
But Inner City Press, which
covered and uncovered the
corruption, remains restricted
with no explanation... This is
unacceptable: Inner City
Press' coverage of the UN is
being hindered, triggered by
its coverage of corruption.
The UN is not complying with
basic due process, as noted
by the Special Rapporteurs
and others. As you know, there
are more than 2500 signatories
to a petition to the UN to
this effect. Please
state: what was
reviewed?" Etc - this too went
to others, we'll have more on
this.

After the UN's
head of Communications
Cristina Gallach was given a
strange farewell toast on
March 30, the UN told Inner
City Press that the "position
will
be filled by
an
Officer-in-Charge...
while the
process to
find a new
Under-Secretary-General
for Public
Information
continues."

On
April 3, Inner
City Press
wrote to this
Officer in
Charge, who
copied the
request to
several others
to be named:

"Four
hundred and five days ago, without
any hearing or opportunity to be
heard, I was ordered out of the
United Nations for having sought
to covering a meeting in the UN
Press Briefing Room that was
nowhere listed as closed to some
journalists and not others. Inner
City Press, still without any
hearing and no appeal since, was
then evicted from its shared
office S-303 which has sat largely
unused since. I have been forced,
for more than a year, to only
enter through the metal detectors
at the Visitors Entrance, and my
pass has not worked on the second
floor turnstile, precluding me
from covering events on the second
floor as other correspondents
could. There are other
restrictions and double standards,
hindering reporting, of which DPI
has been made aware.

Yesterday
was the last day atop DPI for the
official who without speaking to
me once signed the February 19,
2016 letter, and for the April
2016 eviction. The Deputy
Spokespersontold
me yesterday, in a noon briefingwhere
I asked six questions (earlier the
week there was a noon briefing
where from the entire rest of the
accredited press corps there were
only three questioners), I was
told that you are the Officer in
Charge of DPI.
In that capacity, this is a formal
request that Inner City Press be
restored to the office it was
ousted from without due process...
and that I be restored to Resident
Correspondent accreditation
immediately... I also incorporate
this link to the Special
Rapporteurs for Freedom of
Expression and Human Rights
Defenders letter:
and, again, this petition."

Days later, no ruling,
attempted jokes while Inner City Press worked to
write up the Syria UN Security Council meeting
from a bench in the UN lobby. We'll have more on
this.

On
March 28, forwarded not sent
to Inner City Press, this:
"UNCA will host a farewell
reception in honor of
Under-Secretary-General of
DPI, Cristina Gallach, on
Thursday, March 30th at 5:30
pm in the UNCA room (3rd
floor, UN Secretariat
Building, room 310). Food and
wine will be served. Please
join us for a farewell toast!"
Toasting what? Allowing into
the UN with no due diligence
the Macau-based businessman Ng
Lap Seng, as detailed in the
UN's own audit
at Paragraphs 37-40 and 20b?
Evicting the Press without
any hearing or appeal?
The decline in media access?
On March 29, Inner City Press
asked among other things,
"yesterday your Office
replied, regarding the USG of
DPI, 'We will announce
arrivals and departures as
they occur.' Now that your
partner has arranged a
farewell for this USG for
March 30, what is the
rationale for your Office
refusing to confirm her
departure and the status of
recruiting a replacement?" The
UN spokesman replied,
"Regarding
Under-Secretary-General
Cristina Gallach, her position
will be filled by an
Officer-in-Charge upon her
departure while the process to
find a new
Under-Secretary-General for
Public Information continues."
We'll have more on this.

In early
2016, covering the UN
corruption scandals which have
resulted in two sets of
indictments for bribery
involving the UN, Inner City
Press was ordered to leave the
UN Press Briefing Room by then
Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane
Dujarric.

Other
correspondents were allowed to
stay in the briefing room,
which Dujarric had "lent"
them. But he insisted that
Inner City Press leave. Video
here.

Inner City
Press asked to see any
paperwork that the event was
closed; none was provided.
Inner City Press stated that
if a single UN Security
official asked it to leave, it
would. Finally one guard came
and said Dujarric wanted it to
leave.

Inner City
Press immediately left,
uploaded the already
live-streamed Periscope video,
and continued digging into the
corruption that's resulted in
the indictment for bribery and
money laundering of Ban
Ki-moon's brother Ban Ki Sang
and nephew Dennis Bahn.

But three
weeks afterward, without a
single conversation or
opportunity to be heard, Ban's
Under Secretary General for
Public Information Cristina
Gallach ordered Inner City
Press to leave the UN, after
ten years, on two hours
notice. Order
here.

This
was enforced, as Inner City
Press worked on its laptop at
the UN Security Council
stakeout, by eight UN Security
officers led by Deputy Chief
McNulty, who tore Inner City
Press accreditation badge off
its chest and said, "Now you
are a trespasser." Audio
here.

Inner City
Press was marched down the
escalator and around the UN
traffic circle, without even
its coat which was up in its
longtime office. It was pushed
out of the gate and its
laptop, in a bag, was thrown
on the sidewalk and damaged.

The next
work day when Inner City Press
arranged for a fellow
journalist to sign it in as a
guest so it could cover the
Security Council, UN Security
official Matthew Sullivan said
it was Banned from UN premises
worldwide. Audio
here.

After three days covering the
UN from the park in front in
the sleet, and articles like
this one, Inner City Press
re-entered with a
"non-resident correspondents"
pass - to which it is still,
more than eleven months later,
confined.

There has
been no UN opportunity for
appeal or reinstatement. After
having five boxes of Inner
City Press' investigative
files thrown
on the sidewalk in April,
Gallach is giving
its office to an
Egyptian state media Akhbar al
Yom which rarely comes in, a
correspondent Sanaa Youssef
who had yet to ask a single
question.

Her only claim is
that she was once, decades
ago, a president of the United
Nations Correspondents
Association, the group to
which Duajrric "lent" the UN
Press Briefing Room, without
notice or written record, on
January 29, 2016.

Even as the
scope of Ban Ki-moon's
corruption is being exposed
upon his return to South
Korea, here,
his successor Antonio Guterres
has yet to reverse this year
of censorship and no due
process. On January 6 Dujarric
and Gallach led him on a tour
of... the UN Correspondents
Association, which now wants
him again in their clubhouse.
(More on this to follow.)

On January
27 as Inner City Press moved
to cover Guterres at the UN's
Holocaust event, it was
targeted by UN Security and
told it could not proceed
without a minder, who did not
appear for over 15 minutes.

All of this
must change. This is a scam,
and censorship: the UN's
Censorship Alliance. We will
have more on this.

***

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